A Long Rode to Sanity
by blame it on the government
Summary: “Johnny Cade,” I replied with a smile. “Long time, no see.” It had been at least three weeks since I had seen him last even though he had been dead for nearly three years...


Texas looked a lot like Oklahoma. I was nearly two hours over the border, but it looked like I could be twenty mile's drive from my own home. Cows. Corn. Long, green fields of cotton. It stretched endlessly. But I wasn't home. The fact nagged at my brain and made my stomach do little flips. The last time I was this far away from home, I was a fugitive. But this time was different. I kept telling myself that as I drove down the highway. This time I left with my brothers' knowledge. This time, I left on my own terms.

Believe me, though, Darry didn't want me to go. Soda had to practically tie him down in order for me to get out the door.

"I lost him once, Soda!" Darry cried as I left with a rucksack strewn over my shoulder. "I ain't loosing him again!"

"You're not loosing me," I explained rationally. "I'm touring the campus of the University of Texas, and then I'm coming home. I'll be gone three, four days tops."

I was seventeen, old enough to go out on my own for a weekend. In the end, Darry agreed.

"I don't know why you have to do this," Darry muttered sadly as he gave me a great bear hug goodbye.

"I already told you," I replied as I gave him a hug back. "You saw my early acceptance letter. You know I want to see the campus before I commit to anything."

Darry nodded stiffly as he stepped aside so Soda could give me a hug.

"You be safe," Soda whispered in my ear. As we pulled away, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty. "Here, take this."

"Soda, I can't take your money," I said as I pushed the money away.

"Take it," he replied. "It might come in handy. You don't have to spend it. I just want you to have it, just in case."

Reluctantly, I took the money, stuffing it in my pocket. I had every intention of returning it to him as soon as I returned.

That exchange had happened early this morning, before Darry and Soda left for work even. Now, it was approaching afternoon and the eggs I had had for breakfast were wearing thin and I needed gas in a bad way. I took the next exit I saw, pulling into a gas station. As the workers came out to pump my gas, I opened the door, letting myself feel the relief from the stuffy car.

Somehow, Soda had acquired a 1954 Dodge Town Wagon. A man had somehow blown the engine out of his car and when he brought it to the DX station to get it fixed, he realized that it would probably be cheaper to get a new car than to get the old one fixed.

"Keep it," he told Soda. "Maybe you can fix it up and get some use out of it."

So Soda fixed it up and gave it to me as a birthday present for sixteenth birthday.

It was the middle of the July and stifling hot out. With the dime in my pocket, I bought an ice cold coke and a barbeque sandwich from the convenience store next to the gas station. I ate my meal faster than I should have, gulping down the coke as the sweet liquid quenched my parched throat.

Before I had time to really feel relief from the car, I was back on the road, fiddling with the radio. There wasn't very good reception, though, so I flipped it off, trying to crank the window down even farther.

"Pony, I don't think it's going to go down any more than that," said a soft voice from the passenger's seat. I didn't have to look to see how it belonged to.

"Johnny Cade," I replied with a smile. "Long time, no see."

It had been at least three weeks since I had seen him last even though he had been dead for nearly three years.

I looked over and saw him: small, dark skin, black hair, dark eyes. He was stuck at sixteen and with every passing day he looked younger and younger.

It had been about six months after his death when I began seeing him. At first, it was just a glimpse of his face in a crowded hallway, there one second, gone the next. I thought maybe it was just a trick of the light, my eyes playing tricks on me. Within a few months, Johnny began standing still long enough for me to be sure that it was actually he who I was seeing.

It took me a whole year for him to talk to me.

Once he started talking to me, he never left my side. He was there when I woke up. He sat beside me in all my classes. He even stood beside me when I worked my summer job at the snow cone stand near the park where Bob was killed.

And we talked. I told him about the girls I liked at school, how Darry forced my school work down my throat, how much I worried about school and money and college. He didn't speak much; he was more of a listener. Mostly he just added commentary to what I said. I wanted to know what it felt like to die, what the afterlife was like. But I didn't want to ask. It sort of seemed like a sensitive topic, you know?

It wasn't long after Johnny showed up that Dallas Winston started showing his face. He wasn't like Johnny; he came and went and was very unpredictable. He didn't talk much, but he liked to hang around sometimes. I had a feeling he was lonely.

I was happy with Johnny and Dallas there, so very happy. Life didn't seem so hard, schoolwork seemed easier. Then last year, halfway through my junior year, I was called down to the office. Darry was talking with the guidance counselor, a serious look on his face.

"Is it all right if I talk to my brother in private for a moment?" he asked Mrs. Baker.

"Of course," the counselor replied with a half smile.

Darry took me to the hallway, his firm grip until he noted how scared and sad my face looked.

"Look, Ponyboy," Darry said in a strained voice. "I know you miss him. We all do. But you can't talk to him like he's here."

"Why not?" I asked. I didn't know I was the only one who saw him.

"They want to send you away, do you know that?" Darry's eyes looked sad, and I realized, with horror, that they were filling up with tears.

"Send me away?" I asked. "Like to reform school?"

"No, Ponyboy!" Darry shouted. "Like to the loony bin. They think you're crazy! You got to tell them that you know Johnny's dead, that you know he's not really here! You're so smart, Pony. Please don't throw it all away."

I nodded my head as I swallowed hard. It occurred to me, for the first time, how crazy I looked when I talked to nothing but thin air. So I walked into the counselor's office, my eldest brother at my side. I explained that I knew Johnny wasn't there, that I just missed him and this was the way I had chosen to cope and I that I was sorry, I didn't know I was causing a disruption.

"Thank you for sharing," Mrs. Baker had said as she reached out for my hand. She then advised that instead of talking to Johnny as if he was there, that maybe I should write him letters instead.

"That's a fantastic idea!" I exclaimed perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "I think I'll go home tonight and write Johnny a good long letter. And then tomorrow, on Saturday, I'll walk to his grave and put it there for him to read!"

I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, and judging by the way Mrs. Baker nodded her, I was successful.

"You've been very brave, Ponyboy," Mrs. Baker said kindly as she patted my hand. "If you need anything—anything at all—you know where I am. You don't even need an appointment; just come when you feel like it."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am," I said as I stood up.

"Of course," she smiled kindly. "You can get back to class now."

As I left the office, I heard Mrs. Baker share one last word with Darry.

"Mr. Curtis," she said, the kindness drained from her voice. "If he starts talking again with no one around to listen, I'll have no choice but to have him committed. If what he said is true, then we'll all be just fine, but if he was lying, then we don't know what kind of mental imbalance he might have. He could be in danger of hurting himself or others. I hope you understand."

I didn't wait to hear Darry's answer. I just pushed my way out the door, into the hallway. I didn't tell either of them that Johnny had been in the office the whole time.

Even though I had been lying to Mrs. Baker and Darry, I kept good on my promise. I wrote the letters to Johnny. I stopped talking to him when others could listen. But he was still there, and the question still lingered: was I crazy?


End file.
